A Bit Overlong but Maidaan Is One of the Finest Sports Dramas Made in India to Date

 By Avik Basak

 

 

When I was a kid, I used to wonder why the elders in my family were so obsessed with Indian football when the quality was not nearly as good as European teams. I also used to hear about India’s glorious triumph at the Asian Games which seemed like a far cry to repeat considering the situation of the team at the moment. Well, if you can relate to this, then Amit Ravindernath Sharma’s Maidaan is the perfect film to take you on a ride back in time to what was known as the golden era of Indian football.

 

The problem we always see in Indian sports dramas, especially biopics, such as Dangal or Chak De! India is that those are filled with an overdose of patriotism. Don’t get me wrong, I am not discounting these popular films as bad or even mediocre as I myself enjoy them a lot. However, we rarely see more focus on the journey, the technical aspects of the sport or the strategy that helps the team or the person reach the final goal rather than what it means to the nation. I think that is why M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story was so successful since it dealt more with the journey of the man than what it means to represent India on the international stage. Because that is already well-known; putting extra emphasis on that sometimes can defeat the purpose. This problem is not entirely dealt with in Maidaan but it is more balanced than the other, more iconic sports dramas we just discussed.

 

It starts off with Indian National Football Team’s humiliating defeat against Yugoslavia in the 1950 Helsinki Olympics. It encourages the national coach, Syed Abdul Rahim (Ajay Devgn), the central character here, to make some drastic changes. These include enforcing the use of football boots instead of playing barefoot and recruiting fresh talents from all over the country who can play in multiple positions to suit Rahim’s style of football. As a result, he hands out national debut to some of the icons of Indian football such as P.K. Banerjee, Tulsidas Balaram and Chuni Goswami. But as always, when someone tries to do something good and refreshing, they ineluctably will face opposition from people who are jealous and don’t like to upset the established order. The same happens with Rahim Saab here as he faces resistance from people within the Football Association that was orchestrated by an influential sports journalist-editor, Mr Roy Chaudhary (Gajraj Rao).

 

 

The film chronicles the Indian Football Team’s journey under Rahim from humiliation at Helsinki to gradual improvements in the subsequent Olympics to the ultimate triumph at the 1962 Asian Games at Jakarta with several twists and turns along the way. The story begins with an air of excitement but it takes a nosedive in the middle where it becomes sluggish and provides one with ample opportunities to look at their mobile phones to check the time and unread texts. Hence, the film’s 3-hour and 1-minute runtime seems way overlong to say the least. However, the manner in which the amazing third act of the film comes together makes up for a lot of the slow-paced movement in the middle.

 

 

Ajay Devgn does well in the role of Syed Abdul Rahim. In fact, the kind of disciplinarian Rahim Saab was, Devgn probably was the perfect choice for this role as he is known for playing these kinds of characters. Priyamani as Rahim’s wife, Saira is also in good form here but it would have been beneficial for the film if her screen time could have been reduced. The footballers have been portrayed by mostly lesser-known actors but almost all of them have been afforded entry shots at various points of the film’s long runtime. As a result, they do not look less than superstars and one would enjoy these small introductory set-pieces even more if they are familiar with the Indian football history. Gajraj Rao looks amazing as the cold, manipulative sports editor, Mr Roy Chaudhary and the way he pulls off his Bengali dialogues, you would not feel for one moment that he is actually not from Bengal. Rudranil Ghosh as an elite bureaucrat vying for the presidentship in the Football Association also looks quite good for us to develop some resentment for him.

 

 

Maidaan, however, will be remembered by all sports film lovers due to its impeccable camerawork to bring the football matches to life. Russian Cinematographer Fyodor Lyass who was particularly brought in for the sports sequences, does a fabulous job of recreating the matches to the extent that at times, it seems that we are actually watching real football games without missing out on the emotions the Indian players go through while giving their all in the middle. He is well-complemented by Shahnawaz Mosani, who has edited the sports set pieces.

 

Apart from the football matches, Tushar Kanti Ray was the man behind the lens who shot the film with a lot of panache but Dev Rao Jadhav as the chief editor should have been much stricter with his scissors as there is nothing in the film which justifies its marathon run-time. A. R. Rahman’s music seems quite good as the background score keeps us invested in the action while some of the songs such as “Dil Nahi Todenge” and “Team India Hain Hum” are also on point, keeping up with the theme of the film. And a big round of applause should be given to Amit Ravindernath Sharma for pulling off this film the way he did. Yes, it was evident that the cinematographers and the editors were highly involved in deciding how the football scenes came off, but it was Sharma who was at the helm with his vision and the way he weaved it all together here has to be appreciated.

 

 

Overall, Maidaan is one of the finest sports dramas that have been produced in India to date. You can argue that it is not as compact as it could have been but given the history of Indian sports flicks, we can cut the filmmakers a little bit of slack. The football scenes alone make it worthy of a watch.

 

4 Stars Out of 5 from Me…